Religions Reviewed

While they each have compelling features, the literary-rhetorical analyses of Eilberg-Schwartz and Douglas both pose further dilemmas regarding the way in which practitioners of the system of animal proscriptions understood that system in the cultural setting where they originated. Eilberg-Schwartz frankly admits that “ancient Israelites would have found implausible the kinds of interpretations” that he develops.[1] The ethical allegory described by Douglas may be an intrinsic feature of the text of Leviticus, codified when “the relation between humans and animals had become a matter for serious philosophical speculation” in the 5th century B.C.E., but on its own it produces no insight regarding the earlier practices that the text must have incorporated.[2] Moshe Weinfeld’s earlier work suggests an additional principle that may help to consolidate the literary explanations with the ancient practices. Weinfeld proposes that the practices described in Leviticus have a magical basis, in which sacrificial rites and customs of avoidance are apotropaic: they serve to dispel malign influences.[3]  Such a belief could combine powerfully with the sorts of correspondences detailed by Eilberg-Schwartz and Douglas, as well as being a good fit with the ontological ideas in Eilberg’s article on “Creation and Classification.”

Weinfeld’s account highlights a supplementary issue that stands as a further complication in the effort to explain the system of Leviticus. Weinfeld compares Leviticus to Deuteronomy, in an effort to elucidate the differences between the texts and how they might have developed. This same question is taken up by Eilberg-Schwartz, with very different results. While Weinfeld considers the Deuteronomic text to be based on the earlier, more ‘animistic’ Levitical one, Eilberg-Schwartz reverses that relationship, judging the Levitical text as a philosophizing priestly revision of the code in Deuteronomy.[4] Although written earlier, and as a minority view, Weinfield’s chronology has the more compelling argument to support it, which is fortunate because his related ideas about magical practice are actually valuable to complement Eilberg-Schwartz’s own literary analyses.[5]

Other questions arise regarding the relationship of Leviticus 11 to Genesis 1. Source-critical analyses typically attribute both of these passages to the Priestly source, but Edwin Firmage suggests that both were products of the Holiness school.[6]  In any case, there is widespread agreement that there is supportive harmony between the two texts. In some cases, this relationship may be exaggerated. For example, Douglas insists that the sequence of the animal prohibitions in Leviticus reflects that of creation in Genesis, but she is able to draw the parallel only by substituting “domestic-animals that are upon the earth” (Leviticus 11:2) for “sprouting-growth, plants that seed forth seeds, fruit trees that yield fruit, after their kind” (Genesis 1:11-12).[7] Another potential difficulty involves the sequence of textual composition. Firmage, Douglas, and Eilberg-Schwartz all seem to assume that Genesis 1 was composed prior to Leviticus 11.[8] But there is no evidence for this assumption, particularly if the Priestly account of Genesis 1 is understood to be a later supplement to the Yahwist creation of Genesis 2. Instead, Genesis 1 could well be an etiological narrative composed to support an existing ritual system. Eilberg-Schwartz nearly entertains this possibility when he observes how the later rabbinical ritual taxonomy would need to identify itself with “a different conception of cosmogony,” without being originally motivated by a choice of creation narrative.[9] The question is instrumental, because if Eilberg-Schwartz and Firmage are correct about the reality of the rapport between Genesis 1 and Leviticus 11, then it becomes a matter of whether a theory of ontological status was derived from experiences of ritual status, or whether practices of ritual status were based on a belief of ontological status.

——————————————————————————–

[1] Eilberg-Schwartz. “Animal Metaphors,” p. 2.

[2] Douglas, “Forbidden Animals,” p. 4.

[3] Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School, pp. 216-217 & n.

[4] Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School, pp. 213-214; Eilberg-Schwartz, “Creation and Classification,” p. 360; ibid., “Animal Metaphors,” pp. 15-16.

[5] Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School, p. 214 n. 1 presents the decisive points.

[6] Firmage, “Genesis I and the Priestly Agenda,” pp. 110, 113-114.

[7] Douglas, “Forbidden Animals,” p. 16.

[8] Firmage, “Genesis I and the Priestly Agenda,” pp. 103-104; Douglas, “Forbidden Animals,” p. 16; Eilberg-Schwartz, “Creation and Classification,” pp. 357, 360.

[9] Eilberg-Schwartz, “Creation and Classification,” p. 363.